Giving Is from God

The ministry of giving evokes gratitude to God because its source is rooted in his grace.

Sam Storms/ December 5, 2008

Giving Is from God

The ministry of giving evokes gratitude to God because its source is rooted in his grace.

Sam Storms/ December 5, 2008

This article is adapted from a sermon Sam Storms gave on November 30, 2008.

The biblical fact of the matter is that, ultimately speaking, God has no need of us.

I know this cuts deeply into our sense of self-importance, but look closely at what the apostle Paul said to the Athenian philosophers: "He is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything" (Acts 17:25). In another text, Paul extols God precisely because "from him and through him and to him are all things" (Rom. 11:36). If God already owns everything and is in himself perfectly complete, what do we think we could possibly add to his already immeasurably sufficient being? The truth is that the God of the Bible is the kind of God whose greatest delight comes not from making demands but from meeting needs.

Yet, tragically, many Christians exhaust themselves in trying to shore up what they think are deficiencies in God. Their approach to the Christian life is to give to God what they evidently think he lacks. But God is most honored not when we strive to bolster what we mistakenly think is his diminishing supply, but when we come to him humbly to receive from his mercy and goodness what only he can provide. Contrary to what some have said about Christian Hedonism, that in all its talk of seeking pleasure and happiness it is man-centered, it is actually profoundly theocentric. Here's how.

Consider the description of the spiritual dynamics involved when David undertook what may have been the largest building program in history. In 1 Chronicles 29:6-20, we read of the wealth that was raised for the construction of the temple. From a purely human perspective, it would appear that David and the Israelites ...

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